Following the airing of the 7th episode of Funimation’s English dub of the anime adaptation of Akira Hiramoto’s Prison School (Kangoku Gakuen) manga many fans have submitted complaints to the North American anime licensor due to the episode featuring a comment on the GamerGate controversy.
The most recent episode of the anime’s English dub has a comment made by one of the female characters in the anime directly mentioning the GamerGate controversy. The comment is as follows:
Do you have a stick up your ass? Or are you one of those dumbass GamerGate creepshows?
The GamerGate topic itself is highly controversial and many anime fans have raised questions about its inclusion in anime. Fans have been questioning the translation of the line and agenda of the writers, as the topic does not appear in the original manga or Japanese dub of the anime. Here is the full scene in question:
Funimation has issued a response to the claims made by fans:
Last week’s Broadcast Dub episode of Prison School generated significant feedback from anime fans. While the company is not able to answer each person individually, FUNimation does read and review all fan feedback, without exception.
In creating English dubs over the past 20+ years, FUNimation has always modified each Japanese script to appeal to Western audiences. This ensures that North American audiences can enjoy a high-quality viewing experience regardless of their familiarity with Japanese culture.
Neither the dialogue in our shows nor the personal statements of our actors or writers reflects the views or opinions of FUNimation. Official statements from FUNimation are only released via company owned channels (i.e., website and social media profiles) or newswire.
FUNimation will continue to pay close attention to fan feedback on Prison School and will take it into consideration in the future. FUNimation is committed to providing the highest quality entertainment possible.
Prison School (Kangoku Gakuen) is a comedy, ecchi romance manga written and illustrated by Akira Hiramoto, who has work on various other successful series including Ago Nashi Gen to Ore Monogatari and Yarisugi Companion to Atashi Monogatari. The series began in early 2011 being published in Kodansha’s Young Magazine. To date the series has a total of 16 compiled volumes, with the latest releasing on March 6 this year, and has over 3.5 million volumes in circulation in Japan. The series has also won the Best General Manga award at the 2014 Kodansha’s 37th Annual Manga Awards last May. An anime adaptation of the series was announced earlier this year.
Here is a synopsis of the series from MAL:
Hachimitsu Academy, known for its strict academic standards and even stricter school code, is making a giant change this year. In the first time in school history, they are allowing boys to be admitted. As Fujino Kiyoshi starts his first day at Hachimitsu Academy he is shocked to find out that there are only 4 other guys in the entire school, making the ratio of girls to boys 200:1. And to their dismay, not one of the thousand girls will talk to them or even acknowledge them. But Kiyoshi and the guys are about to find out about the shadow student council that has been threatening the female students about interacting with male students.
The Funimation English dub of the Prison School anime has new episodes every Wednesday at 8:30pm ET on Funimation’s DubbleTalk livestream.
You can visit the North American website of the anime here: http://www.funimation.com/shows/prison-school/
You can visit the anime’s website here: http://prison-anime.com/
And follow their Twitter: @prison_anime
“Kangoku Gakuen”, “Prison School”, images, videos and all associated brands and titles © 2015 Akira Hiramoto and Kodansha